


La Muerte Nos Separa

by inferablefiend



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Death, F/M, Hope, Major character death - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 23:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11793369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inferablefiend/pseuds/inferablefiend
Summary: It wasn't supposed to happen. She never got her happy ever after and now he's on the hunt to find who took it from her.





	La Muerte Nos Separa

There are moments in life where you take a breath and it’s gone. A blink of an eye and you miss it forever. Play it back in your head, go over every last detail you remember knowing the more you thought about it, the more skewed it became. 

This was his moment. 

“How can you stand this heat?” Ana asked around a mouthful of strawberries he was able to procure just for her. Her hair swept forward in the wind, catching in her open mouth smile. 

Reyes was silent, staring at her. Taking it all in. The way the Kadara sun caressed her reddening skin and the juice of the strawberries dripping from her chin. His own smile played on silent lips. “It’s home.”

Ana snuck a look at him, grinning even wider, not caring the mess she had in her mouth. 

A sound rang out across the sand, rocks and plants. Barely heard over her laughter. It ended in her skull. Forward she fell, the strawberries once flavored bubbling out of her mouth. 

There was nothing after that. No more shots. No glint of the rifle as he desperately tried to look for it. Ana lay face first in the dirt, blood trickling from her wound, mixing with the sickly bright red of the strawberries from her mouth.

It wasn’t anger that gripped him. It was  _ rage.  _ With a control he wasn’t aware he had, he flipped her on her back and closed her eyes. His omni-tool dinged once, twice, three times as messages flooded it. Reyes shut it off. 

He needed to dig. 

Part of being the Charlatan required him to carry a shovel in the back of his ship. Sometimes death was unavoidable. 

Reyes turned his back to Ana’s body and dug. 

His hands shook. He couldn’t breathe. He dug. 

Reyes leaned on the shovel, staring down at the hole before him. It was hours into digging, unable to get himself to stop. He wanted Ana to be his for a little while longer.

Now she was no one’s. 

Reyes picked up her body and laid her in the hole. Maybe she should’ve gotten a coffin. Maybe a service, but this what needed to be done. It wouldn’t be right if she left out for the scavengers to pick at her. 

Reyes covered her slowly, inch by inch, watching his Ana disappear into the earth. 

One breath. Two. Three. Breathe. Just breathe. 

There was a plant not far from her grave. He remembered her telling him it reminded her of the ferns of Washington. 

For the next thirty minutes, he carefully dug the plant up and moved it to the head of the mount. 

There, again, Reyes stood. A moment of silence for what was lost. He turned away, vowing to find out who did this.

*

Reyes parked his ship behind Tartarus. “I tried to stop them. They-” He held up his hand to stop the young man from having a heart attack. 

“It’s fine.”

He walked into the club, the music and thumping creating an instant headache along the right temple. 

“You fucking bastard!” screamed a masculine voice as the door to his room opened. Ryker Ryder, he assumed. Someone she talked endlessly about, but Reyes never met him. “If she hadn’t been out with you, she would be-”

He came at Reyes, almost a perfect copy of his sister. Those blue eyes, exactly her shade. The hair. The temper. Ill-advised plans.

Reyes stood there, resisting the urge to punch back when Ryker’s first landed on his cheek. He staggered back, but didn’t fall. 

Iliana’s crew stood in the back watching the exchange without stepping in. Ah. Well, that’s how it’s going to be. 

“I’m not guiltless!” Reyes backed away, holding his jaw. “I don’t hold blame for anyone but me!”

Ryker screamed again. “I have lost everyone!”

“You aren’t the only person who lost everything,” Reyes growled. He advanced towards Ryker, thought better of it and spun around. His fist collided with the wall. “I blame myself.”

Ryker stood there. His silence bent around Reyes. Tears fell forbiddingly down Reyes’ cheek. He kept his back to Iliana’s brother and her brother. It wouldn’t do to show weakness. 

Reyes wiped his cheeks. “I will find who did this.”

A hand landed on his shoulder. It startled Reyes, but it’s only Ryker. “I’ll help you.”

*

There were nights Reyes didn’t want to get into his bed. Flashes of Ana lay waiting behind his lids. 

There were mornings Reyes didn’t want to get out of his bed. The only place he saw Ana was behind his lids.

Ana stayed in her grave. Ryker wanted to dig her up and give her a proper service, but Reyes convinced him otherwise. It wouldn’t be good for the Nexus if its people saw their symbol of hope as a corpse. 

But they were no closer to finding her killer.

Ryker stepped in for Ana, filling all of the Pathfinder duties. In his free time, his crew knew he could be found in the backroom with Reyes, going over all of the data SAM recorded. Going out to her grave several times over months to find some hidden clue. 

The first time Ryker visited his sister’s grave, he broke down at the bottom of the mound. Tears coated his cheeks, even with his screams, he had a hard time breathing. Ryker looked at Reyes, a question deep in his eyes.  _ Why? Why would someone cut her down?  _

Reyes didn’t know. He had no answers for Ryker. 

But an angaran named Sinrin, or Sin had answers for him. She refused to meet in Tartarus. Refused to meet in the Port. She wanted to meet at Ana’s grave.

Reyes hesitated, not knowing what to expect from her. He didn’t go unarmed.

The moon rose slowly over the cliffs, casting the brown earth in a silver glow. Sin was already there, standing over Ana’s grave. Her hands clasped in front of her. 

“It’s been taken care of,” Sin said keeping her back to his. 

“Excuse me?” Reyes rested his hand on his pistol. That age-old rage reared its head again. 

“The man who shot the Pathfinder. He’s been taken care of.”

It died inside of him. Something. The rage, her memory, his love. Reyes couldn’t tell what. “I…”

“She was a symbol of hope for the angaran too, you know?” Sin said, finally turning to face him. Her purple skin seemed almost ethereal in the moonlight. Her feline-like eyes glowed at him. 

There are moments you never miss. Moments that haunt you years later, nagging at the back of your mind. They never leave you alone and never will.

This was his. 


End file.
